long time, no woof!

Hi everyone, remember me? Kiri, the blogging Lab?? It's been so long since I've written here, I wouldn't be surprised if nobody even checks in anymore to see if I'm around. In fact, it's been so long that the Internet place canceled my email address, so if anyone tries sending me emails, it's not going to work! (Mom will try to fix that at some point.) I'm already 8 months old, can you believe it?!

I know you're all dying to know what I've been up to lately, but it's not as exciting as you might think. Really, I've just been busy growing up. I've been at the age where Mom uses a lot of management (see my blog post on that topic!) and not a lot of training, to keep me behaving myself and not developing bad habits while my body is developing a lot of size and other useful stuff, like coordination.





Here's one of the new management things Mom has done with me the past few months since we last talked. This is a special leash called a Flexi-Lead retractable leash, and it feeds out and retracts as I move around. It sort of gives me the feeling of being off-leash, yet Mom's always got control if she needs it.

Mom's not a real big fan of the Flexi-lead usually -- she says that it does a pretty good job of teaching dogs to pull if they don't already know about walking on a nice loose leash, since it gives constant leash-feedback on our necks. She would never, ever use one when she is first teaching a dog to walk nicely on a leash. But since I'm such a good leash-walking dog from her work with me while I was little, she decided that I was experienced enough to understand the difference between when I'm on a regular leash and when I'm on the Flexi.


I really like my Flexi, because it lets me go for relaxed walks with Mom and the Things up our street, which is a totally cool place to go for a walk. There's really not many cars, and there's tons of woods and fields and cool stuff to sniff and explore along the way.

One other management thing Mom does for me while we're walking is to give me my "walking stick". That's what she calls that really cool chunk of branch I've got in my mouth. Without the "walking stick," here's what happens:



Yup, I just can't resist putting that leash in my mouth! And Mom says Flexi-leads don't grow on trees, so she doesn't want me biting through it. However, sticks DO grow on trees, so I can chomp down on my walking stick all I want and nobody minds.







So when we get ready to go for a walk, someone just hands me my walking stick, and away we go!


Speaking of which, the Things are ready to go, so here we go!

Mom has just started taking me to a dog class again, so training is underway again (hooray!!!), which means I should have plenty of stuff to write about soon. Hopefully I'll be around a little more from now on. So come back and look for me soon!

See ya!